August 30, 2005

A Place Worth Saving

The Times-Picayune's James Varney tries to answer a question that I'm sure a lot of people are asking today, "Will New Orleans Survive?" (reprinted in its entirety under the cut because NOLA.com's permalinks aren't working):

On the southern fringe of New Orleans' City Park there is a live oak
with a branch that dips low, goes briefly underground, and comes up the
other side still thriving.

It's ancient and gnarled, this tree, and filtered sunglight slants through its crown at dusk. It's a sublime thing.

When we talk about these majestic items that dot New Orleans' landscape
we say, "is," but we may mean, "was." The reports are still scattered,
the news from the ground still incomplete, but Hurricane Katrina may
have annihilated New Orleans.

It looks bad to everyone. "It's impossible for us to say how many
structures can be salvaged," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said late Tuesday.
But can the birthplace of jazz truly be wiped from the face of the
earth?

New Orleans may yet surprise. Too often the city is written off as a
whiskey nirvana, where one guzzles Pimms cups at Napoleon House in the
French Quarter at night, and eggs and grits at the Camellia Grill in
the Riverbend at sunrise.

In truth, however, New Orleans is as sublime as it is Rabelaisian. For
example - and this is a thing few tourists know - the French Quarter,
home of Bourbon Street and jazz and possessor of a global reputation
for parties, is in fact a National Park. Now and then, through the
spokes of a horse-drawn carriage taking honeymooners up Royal Street,
one can spot the distinctive, "Smokey," hat of a park ranger telling a
more earnest visitor some genuine history.

That could include the iconic statue of Andrew Jackson, rearing back on
his mustang between the Mississippi River and the St. Louis Cathedral.
At its base - and this is a thing few locals know - are the words, "Our
Union: It Must and Shall be Preserved."

Jackson said that as president, and his toast was first carved into the
statue by Union troops during the Civil War, a reminder to the former
Confederate citadel that even one of the South's greatest sons was, at
heart, a Union man.

Of course, the locals in 1864 didn't cotton to that sentiment. Legend
holds the ladies residing in the Pontalba, the graceful brick apartment
buildings that flank Jackson Square and are reputedly the oldest such
edifices in the United States, would dump their human waste pots on the
caps of officers strolling underneath.

Fortunately - and how odd that word sounds in association with New
Orleans today - the French Quarter was still mostly dry, largely
intact, late Tuesday. In another Big Easy quirk, the impossibly
charming neighborhood Uptown, which is hard against the Mississippi
River, is one of the highest spots in the city.

The true highest spot is an upriver paddlewheel ride away: Monkey Hill
in the New Orleans zoo. No one reportedly sought refuge there as
Katrina surged about the city, although it might not have been that bad
a spot since it's at the opposite end of the zoo from the king cobra
and the Komodo dragon.
The zoo itself is another example of how New Orleans, for all its
famous decay, can survive. What was once dubbed an "animal ghetto" was
turned around by the city and was, until the dreaded "Big One" grazed
the city, a bucolic spot.

Other areas, too, may weather the storm. Certainly the fishing spots in
the bayous of eastern New Orleans will remain; the fate of the gorgeous
trellis of live oak branches arching over St. Charles Avenue is less
certain.

Those 19th century trees are one symbol of New Orleans. A 20th century
symbol, William Faulkner, was first published in The Times-Picayune
while he was living in the city and writing his first novel. He called
the city, "a courtesan whose hold is strong upon the mature, and to
whose charm the young must respond."

Now, in the 21st century, the courtesan cries for help. The response from young and old will decide if she lives or dies.